The Scot and I (21 page)

The train jolted into motion. Shaking his head, smiling a little, he dropped into the nearest banquette and focused his thoughts on what might lie ahead.

 

 

Mahri appeared to be calm, but beneath that cool exterior, her nerves were stretched taut. She was thinking that this was too easy. The guard on the bridge was too compliant, and the same could be said of the stationmaster. They should have asked more questions, shown some reluctance to let them pass. It made her wonder whether they had walked into a trap.

She couldn’t dwell on her worries for long, because Juliet and her mother kept drawing her into their conversation. They talked of the dress shops in Aberdeen, the beautiful scenery they were passing through, and shook their heads over the flooded fields and the hardships that that would bring to the farmers and their families when winter set in. At every station, however, as more passengers got on the train, the tension in their small compartment was almost palpable.

After the last stop before Aboyne, the idle chatter died away. Mahri was rehearsing in her mind the next part of Alex’s plan. He didn’t want to arrive in Aberdeen in uniform. He wanted to melt into the crowd as quickly as possible, just in case something went wrong. That made a change of clothes necessary, and she had them right there in her leather traveling bag, as well as supplies Miss Napier had left to treat Gavin.

Aboyne came too soon for her liking, when she was still rehearsing what everyone was supposed to do. Metal screeched on metal, the engine belched a cloud of steam, and doors were flung open even before the train had come to a stop.

“Ready, Mother?” said Juliet.

The old lady’s eyes held a feverish sparkle. “The last time I felt this ready was the day I married your father.”

Juliet winked at Mahri. “I don’t think I want to hear any more in that vein.”

Mahri smiled, but her eyes were trained on the platform outside their window. She saw Alex stepping down from the carriage. Hawkers were coming alongside the train, selling newspapers from Aberdeen and hot buns and pies from local bakeries. Alex bought a newspaper and appeared to scan the front page. This was their cue to get going.

Mahri passed the traveling bag to Juliet and opened the carriage door. Once on the platform, in true gentlemanly fashion, she helped each lady to descend. They were taking a little walk to stretch their legs, or so they hoped it would appear to anyone who was watching.

When they came level with Alex, Juliet bent down to remove a piece of grit from her shoe. When she straightened, she was no longer carrying the bag. Mrs. Cardno had spread her voluminous skirts to conceal the transfer. It was Mahri’s job to act as lookout.

“It’s done,” said Juliet in Mahri’s ear. “Alex has the bag.”

Mahri nodded absently. Her mind worked the same way as Alex’s, and she was busily sorting and assessing the people milling around on the platform. They all seemed innocent enough. All the same, as she hoisted herself into the carriage, she surreptitiously looked over her shoulder.

And she froze. Some tardy passengers, well-dressed gentlemen, one in a long brown coat, were converging upon the last carriage on the train, Alex’s carriage. She recognized one of them, though he wouldn’t have recognized her. It was Murray, her father’s henchman.

It took her only a split second to decide what to do. She jumped onto the platform and slammed the carriage door behind her.

 

 

John Murray, the man in the long brown coat, had been the first passenger to alight from his carriage. Close behind him were three companions, crack shots all, who fanned out as he began to walk slowly to the end of the train. He thought he had everything figured out. Alex Hepburn was posing as a soldier. The young man whom he’d half dragged, half carried into the station at Ballater must be the girl, and the other man, also posing as a soldier, had to be Hepburn’s companion, whom Miller had referred to as “No Name.” They should have been actors, they were so convincing.

Murray hadn’t expected Hepburn to make his move so soon. Miller had told him, under torture, about the uniforms and the letter giving Hepburn the authority to commandeer a carriage on the train, but he had sworn that he did not know where Hepburn was or when he intended to leave. It was as well for him, John Murray, that he never relaxed his vigilance, or he might have missed Hepburn altogether.

It wasn’t Hepburn he wanted, of course; it was the girl. She was worth a lot of money to him alive. But he didn’t underestimate Hepburn. He would try to protect her. The girl was his passport to clearing his name. Whether she was a willing or an unwilling hostage made no difference. She knew too much. Hepburn had to be stopped before he handed her over to the authorities. Once the girl was back with her father, Murray’s job would be over, and he would walk away a much richer man.

He was a cautious man. Though he’d had a clear shot at Hepburn in Ballater, he had decided that soldiers from the barracks would be swarming all over the place if they heard the shot. He’d have a much better chance of bringing down his quarry in this quiet country town.

The train was ready to move. He nodded to his best marksman, the signal to enter the carriage and deal with Hepburn and Mr. No Name. He would follow closely and deal with the girl.

“Stand where you are, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

Murray turned swiftly to see a young man with a revolver in his hand, pointing it straight at him. Everything clicked into place in an inkling of a moment. “Get her,” he shouted. “That’s the girl.”

The gun wobbled as he knew it would. “There are four of us,” he said pleasantly, “and only one of you. Who will you shoot first?”

“Why you, of course,” she said, and she pulled the trigger.

The whistle blew, and steam belched from the engine, covering the report of the gunshot. The only fatality was Murray’s hat. It went flying from his head onto the track. Guns drawn, the men approached her slowly. She was completely cut off.

Alex dug into the traveling bag and produced dressings and salve for Gavin’s wound as well as a bottle of Pannanich water.

“I’m not drinking that slop,” Gavin protested when Alex thrust the bottle into his hand. “Who knows what’s in it?”

“I think the lad is getting better,” said Dugald with a grin. He was rummaging in the bag, laying out each article of clothing as he unpacked it.

When the train jolted into motion, Alex folded himself into the well-upholstered banquette. Gavin was stretched out on the other side, using the banquette as a bed.

“Well,” said Alex, “I think that went off rather—”

He sat bolt upright. Outside the window, he saw the figure of Mahri in her man’s clothes, making for the exit. She wasn’t alone. Accompanying her were three well-dressed youngish gentlemen.

A red mist swam before his eyes. She’d never had any intention of going with him. She’d lulled him into thinking that she was docile, when all the time she was plotting how she could escape. She had betrayed him. Somehow, she’d got word to her friends that they’d be on the train.

He jumped to his feet at the precise moment that a shot plowed into the banquette he’d been reclining against. A man was framed in the doorway. Before the thug could fire again, Alex slammed his forearm down on the man’s wrist, and the gun went slithering into the corridor.

Time receded. Alex was no longer the Alex Hepburn who sat behind a desk in Whitehall, breaking codes no one else could break. He was a covert field agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Service with authority to kill.

They came at each other again. There was nothing Dugald or Gavin could do to help, because Alex and his assailant were in the small corridor that joined the three compartments that made up the carriage, and Alex had his back to them. He brought up his knee like a battering ram, aiming for the man’s stomach. The man grunted, retreated, then lunged toward Alex, swiping at his throat with the back of his hand. Alex caught the outstretched arm by the elbow and wrenched it as high as it would go. There was a sickening crunch, and the man roared in anger and pain.

Alex relaxed his guard and paid for it dearly. A knife appeared in the man’s other hand and grazed the fleshy part of Alex’s shoulder. Alex lashed out his right foot, catching his assailant on the knee. They both went down, grappling for the knife. A fist crashed into Alex’s jaw, stunning him. Remembering his training, he rolled from that flashing blade, but he couldn’t roll far in the confines of that narrow corridor.

He was pulling himself into an empty compartment when his attacker loomed over him, ready to plunge the knife into his chest. A triumphant smile was etched on his face. That smile brought Alex to his senses. He wasn’t ready to die yet. As the knife plunged down, he bent his knees and smashed his booted feet into his attacker’s chest. The man reeled back against the carriage door. Alex was on him in an instant. He shoved the door wide and shouldered the man out onto the track.

When he turned back, both Gavin and Dugald were standing there gaping. He was breathing hard. When he had caught his breath, he said, “The fall won’t kill him. I can run faster than this train is moving.” He took another breath. “I have to go back.”

“Go back for what?” Dugald demanded, angry and baffled at the same time.

There wasn’t time to explain, and Alex didn’t want Dugald to know that Mahri had left the train. He would insist on going with him.

“There was trouble at the station,” he said. “Stick to our plan, and if we don’t meet up in Aberdeen, look for me in Feughside.”

He opened the carriage door, waited until the train was passing a bank of broom, and jumped. His teeth jarred, the wind was knocked out of him, but there were no bones broken. When he got to his feet, he dusted himself off. He was still wearing the uniform of the Queen’s Guard.

“
Break your journey in Aboyne.
”

The old witch must be laughing her head off.

Fifteen

She’d taken a brutal knock on the head, and she wakened, disoriented and nauseated, to find that she was slung over the back of a horse with her hands and legs tied to the saddle. Logical thought came back slowly. She remembered the train, the platform at Aboyne, her shock of recognition when she caught sight of Murray. She’d taken a lightning impression of his accomplices and knew at once that these men were not members of the Demos she knew. Like Murray, they were hard-faced, sharp-edged mercenaries. Dear God, how far had her father sunk?

She thought of Alex, and panic swelled in her chest till she could hardly breathe. She remembered the shot she’d heard coming from his carriage. The thought that they might have killed him was too horrible to be borne. She wouldn’t believe it. She refused to believe it. It would take more than these hard-faced louts to get the better of him.
Alex is alive.
She repeated the words over and over like a litany. Alex was alive, and he would come for her.

In the meantime, all she could do was take the measure of the men who had abducted her so that she could even the odds when the time came. No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she began to question her sanity. Who did she think she was fooling? She was defenseless, a sitting duck, making grandiose plans she hadn’t a hope of carrying out. At the station, she’d made a muck of things. She could have shot one of them, maybe two, but people got in her way—passengers, vendors, and newspaper boys—and she wouldn’t risk hitting innocent people, so she’d taken to her heels with some wild idea of drawing them off to save her friends.

She’d chanced one look back and had seen one of the thugs enter Alex’s carriage. When she’d heard the shot, she’d turned back. That was when Murray had felled her with a mighty blow to the side of the head.

She blinked rapidly to clear the haze from her eyes. When the haze did not clear, it came to her that it was, in fact, one of those capricious Highland mists that was rising from the ground and draping everything in its way in a translucent shroud.